Wendy Bisaro

To the Minister, I am not saying that junior kindergarten is not a good program and I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be implemented. What I am saying is we have eight Aboriginal Head Start programs in eight communities in the NWT. The impression that is being given to both school boards and to the Aboriginal Head Start Council, from my understanding, is that junior kindergarten will be in the schools. The four-year-olds will go to school; the four-year-olds will not go to any other programming. This is not daycare, Mr. Speaker. This is a preschool play program and it is an extremely valuable...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I would like to follow up on some questions that were asked earlier in the week by my colleagues from Hay River, particularly Mr. Bouchard, who spoke about some of the potential impacts on junior kindergarten, sorry, the impacts of junior kindergarten on other preschool programs. In both Hay River and Yellowknife, we have viable preschool programs and the one I want to specifically refer to is the Aboriginal Head Start program. The Junior Kindergarten Program is going to have a huge impact on...

Great explanation, but it doesn’t give me much comfort. I didn’t really hear that there are any enforcement capabilities, and it’s something that concerns me, particularly in a number of areas as devolution comes forward. We’ve got a lot of operating mines, for instance, which, as we’ve heard over the last couple of weeks, don’t have adequate security for their closure plans, and this sounds to me like it’s similar. We’re going to have a regulator who makes a decision, but will the regulator be using somebody to determine that the amount of money that’s declared is accurate and is appropriate...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We heard from some of my colleagues last week that negotiations between the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and the Hay River DEA to swap schools in Hay River have broken down. Not only has the Hay River District Education Authority withdrawn but so has the Commission scolaire francophone.

The solution proposed by the GNWT, while workable, just did not provide for a good learning environment for either Ecole Boreale or Harry Camsell School students in Hay River.

The situation in Yellowknife is no better. Negotiations are on hold while Education District...

Thanks to Mr. Goldney. The act established or the agreement, either one, but there is a secretariat that is established. There are costs associated with that secretariat. Clause 4 says each member is responsible for their own cost of participation on the council. But then Section 9 says money required to be expended for the purpose of carrying out, et cetera, shall be paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. So my question goes to the cost to GNWT.

What are the costs that are referred to in Section 4 and, ultimately, what are the costs to GNWT, since I gather that we are going to be providing...

Thanks, Mr. Aitken. One last question. I guess it’s a comment, really. I notice that it was in Bill 10, as well, and I’m pretty sure that it’s in some of the other bills, also, but closure and reclamation of developments isn’t really covered, I don’t believe, in probably any of these acts, and it kind of goes to the same issue of financial security that Mr. Bromley was talking about. Do we have in these bills as we mirror them, do we have what the general public would consider as adequate financial security and adequate requirements for closure and remediation plans when a development is...

Thanks to the Premier for the explanation, but it doesn’t give me any warm and fuzzy feeling that the public is going to get the report. I understand the intent of this clause is that the public will get the full report, but it can be interpreted a number of different ways, so is it going to be covered in regulations or is it simply going to be left to the Minister of the day who will decide, yeah, no, today I’m going to do one page and maybe next week I’ll do 300? Thank you.

Thanks to the Premier. That’s good to hear. Where is that going to be laid out? Is it laid out already in regulations, or is it again something that has yet to be determined? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Druyan. Yes, that’s clear. I’m laughing because the manner in which it’s released could be one page as opposed to 20 pages, and I understand that’s not what you said, so my question then goes to what is going to identify the manner in which it’s released; refers to electronic versus paper versus something else as opposed to you can release it in a manner of, you know, a one-page summary or a 300-page detailed document? Thanks.

Thanks. Something else to add to the list for us to consider after April 1st when we consult. I wanted to also ask, it struck me and this came from the information that we got from our staff, but it talks about disclosure of information, and I’m sorry I don’t have the reference in the bill, but as I understand it if, there was a conflict in terms of disclosure of information between the section in the act, between the Petroleum Resources Act and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, that the Petroleum Resources Act will take precedence. That struck me as being a little...